MetLife to pay millions to settle S.D.-linked case

Insurance giant MetLife Inc. agreed to pay $13.5 million to the federal government for its role in making improper payments to a San Diego insurance brokerage over a six-year period, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

U.S. Attorney Karen Hewitt said in a news release that the payment is part of a settlement with the government.

The payments were made between 1999 and 2005. Neither the 15-page agreement nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office identified the San Diego-based insurance brokerage that received the payments or the firm’s CEO.

According to the settlement, MetLife made millions in improper payments to the brokerage in order to get the business of the firm’s clients. The brokerage firm dealt with large companies, helping them find insurance companies that could provide life, health and disability benefits for their employees.

The improper payments were made so the brokerage would steer large clients to MetLife, according to the settlement agreement.

They were termed “special fees” or “override payments” and were never disclosed to MetLife’s customers or the government as required by law.

Greg Moran

Residents to have a say in naming of high school

A proposal to name Alpine’s new high school after former President Ronald Reagan has been scrapped by the Grossmont Union High School District board.

The board Thursday night unanimously asked Superintendent Robert Collins to put together a committee that will get suggestions on a name for the school. The committee will include Alpine residents, who had complained that they were excluded when district trustees proposed naming the school after Reagan.

The school board voted in March to push the name of the 40th president for the long-awaited new campus in Alpine, canceling a policy calling for high schools to be named for their geographic region.

Several speakers told the board they didn’t think it was appropriate to name the high school after the president.

“I simply do not see how naming the high school for Ronald Reagan would have any meaning for the residents of Alpine,” said Gretchen Bennett, a Santee resident who grew up in Alpine.

Republicans across the nation had latched on to the issue, including conservative activist and former Reagan confidant Grover Norquist. He heads the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project and urged the Grossmont school board to name its high school for Reagan, noting on the project’s Web site that it would be the first community in California to do so.